Erie County Sheriff Charged 3 News Agencies $200+ for Same Records
The Sheriff’s Office charged three news outlets for the same four-page report and two letters:
- Buffalo News: $62.50
- Channel 2: $62.50
- Channel 4: $77.50 (4 page report only)
Each was billed for 2.5 hours of employee time to “extract” identical records—totaling over 7 hours of work that was done once.
This appears to violate FOIL’s “actual cost” requirement. Agencies can only charge what it actually costs to prepare records, not charge multiple requesters for the same work.
If it took 2.5 hours to prepare these records, that cost should be shared among the three requesters (~$21 each), not charged three times over.
What an agency may charge for a records request is set out on our Freedom of Information Law page.
